Repatriation: our right as citizens to return or be returned to our home country when we are or were displaced, forcibly or freely; to be restored to our communities of origin, and alongside us, also see returned pieces of our histories and cultural heritage scattered elsewhere over time.
One of the popularly most known projects of cultural repatriation since democracy arrived in South Africa was to return and preservation of the famous Timbuktu papers – a flagship project of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development initiated by former president Thabo Mbeki.
The Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Islamic Studies in Timbuktu, which houses 30 to 40 thousand ancient scientific manuscripts, was established after then President Mbeki visited Mali and set up a bilateral agreement to build the Institute.
The Nepad initiative drew wide attention and for good reason. It illustrated the voice of our continent in and among the histories of the world.
In the mind’s eye of the continent and the world it illustrated that the people of the continent are and have always been people of deep histories, significant knowledge and rich humanity – a reality that goes far beyond what was and often still are the popular and skewed stories painted by Western media of Africa only as a fantastical place of pyramids, palaces, lions and kings.
Hollywood movies that celebrate parts of African history and cultural heritage to inspire audiences do get that it right in this respect: who we have been and continue to be as Africans surely are spectacular.
South African projects to unearth and conserve local sites, artifacts and histories of similar import include the world heritage sites of the Kingdom of Mapungubwe, the Cradle of Humankind and the political prison on Robben Island, among several others.
As markers of historical and cultural heritage they are significant, but what gives these exemplars of Africanness oomph is the picture they paint of the people that made them, the people who authored them.
The ancient buildings that house artifacts, the manuscripts that record events and thought, the graveyards that host the remains of the people and the new memorials and research centres constructed on historical sites, point in only one direction: the people that lived their everyday lives and in doing so did significant things at the centre of reparation as homecoming.
This is the backdrop against which the recent repatriation of the remains of 42 freedom fighters from Zambia and Zimbabwe to South Africa took place and were honoured at a homecoming ceremony by President Cyril Ramaphosa recently.
It is the backdrop this week to welcome home the remains of one of our own, freedom fighter Basil February.
His remains were handed over to the family an intimate ceremony at St George’s Cathedral. He died in exile and was buried in an unmarked grave in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, more than five decades ago.
The family said that his return marks a key turn in their journey for closure. With a dignified burial the family will remember, and therein also a society. In this one moment of return of a citizen lies a critical part of what repatriation is – it is a homecoming, not only for a society, but more importantly to a family.
It is the final return to the most intimate centre of collective memory, namely to those people closest to the lost ones, their family. This is the sites of full repatriation and restitution: when the families of returning citizens are the primary audience and guardians of their legacy. It is around them that a society must gather to remember.
* Rudi Buys, NetEd Group Chief Academic Officer and Executive Dean, DaVinci Business Institute.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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